Back In the Workshop.

It is that time of year , maintenance time, it is not to bad this year no need for open heart surgery as last year( pulling the whole roller train out). This time we only have to replace the extractor hoods, not to much of a hassle.We had a visit the other day from some researchers from a wide range of fields, carbon life cycle analysis of a sugarcane crop, a precision Ag guy who is looking at about 23 different light spectrum's for NIR ,and associate Proffesor in microbiology, an Ag engineer. It was an interesting afternoon listening to their thoughts and ideas about how we go about farming. A few days after that Dr Alan Garside who was the leader of the research team that developed the principals of the farming system that we use, it is always great to catch up with Alan and listen to his views on how we are going with the implementation of the principals of a new farming system. It was encouraging to hear him speak about the improvements in our soil health that he observed since his last visit, we also spoke about the experiences that I had overseas on my Nuffield travels and how the principals of a good farming system are the same world wide.I have a picture of my brother speaking with one of our visitors explaining our permanent bed minimum till operation.

Blair Farms Kendrick Idaho.

I have been home for a couple of weeks now and have just gotten around to update my travels, the reason it has taken me a while to get hear is that I have been writing my Nuffield Report, I am getting through it I have a lot of information and ideas so fingers crossed it will all make sense. my last stop on my travels was with Robert Blair an Eisenhower Fellow who I met when we were in the U.K last year,he was awarded 2009 international precision farmer of the year, and is a pioneer in U.A.V (unmanned aerial vehicles) for there use in remote sensing for agricultural applications. Robert farms 1400 acres , and grows winter wheat, lentils ,chickpeas, spring wheat,field peas and lucerne, as well having a few head of cattle.He also minimum tills and farms in one of the most unique places in the world the "pa loose" which is a series of undulating hills and canyons, when he jokes about faring three sides of an acre it is easy to see why .His combine is fitted with what is locally called a "hillside" front modification that basically allows the header front and the front axle of the combine to stay parallel to the ground but allows the body of the machine to tilt to remain horizontal, pretty cool to see.the beauty of the way Robert farms is that he constantly rotating crops on his fields, it is amazing to me to see farms on what I would consider hills here at home, some of his soils are up to a meter deep. A truly amazing landscape.

Florida and Sugarcane

Florida was an interesting place, they had the best ground I had ever seen it is the stuff that we sell as potting mix for gardeners. Seriously this soil is so high in organic matter that it burns, and they grow cane without any applied nitrogen, the down side is that it oxidizes and they are losing soil at an alarming rate. The other big problem is that under the soil is granite it looks like slabs of concrete have been laid under the soil, when it gets that bad they have to walk away. These guys also pre harvest burn which I found a little odd given that their soil is so vulnerable to burning. They also rotate with rice and veggies, and like Louisiana there water issues revolve around lowering the water table to control moisture, and they have a series of canals that they pump into with massive pumps that push water into that ends up in the everglades .Weeds are a big problem here also and the biggest is Bermuda grass which is very hard to kill without also affecting sugarcane production, it seems that although we seem to be worlds apart we seem to share the same sought of challenges.You also have to watch where you walk around the headland ditches this was one of two gators we saw in about 5 minutes.

Texas

Texas was the next stop , right down in the south on the Rio Grande river that is the border between Mexico and the U. S. This was probably the closest thing to home that I had seen climate wise and soil wise, these guys furrow irrigate like us and like the majority of the Burdekin they pre harvest burn. Water is scarce here so that is pretty much there limiting factor . Here I visited Rio Farms which is a independently funded research centre that focus more on propagating and comparing new varieties available for release. There setup was very good model in my view they had enough land to grow farm trials so they could accurately monitor performance and on the rest of there land the grew commercial crops to provide revenue for there research.They were also looking at ways to add a break to there sugarcane crops and were experimenting with "Tillage Radish" these are pretty amazing plants that can exert 300psi of pressure at the tip of there roots, hence the name tillage radish they are natures answer to a plow.